Rock Hard Festival 2006
For another time the Rock Hard Festival became a big success! Although the organizers had got the cancelation of the Friday headliner Celtic Frost that short before they had no time left to replace them by some new band the festival-billing was excellent anyway. The cool relaxed party atmosphere is a ‘for-sure-guarantee” realised by a nice audience in the wonderful ideal area of the Amphitheater Gelsenkirchen. The two persons who tried to disturb this atmosphere by distributing flyers of a party from the very far right scene in Germany were thrown out by the organizers! The only right decision to show those freaks are never invited!!!!!
Besides that I tried a new experience: Because of the Illdisposed + Deadsoil + Demia-show that was held in Cologne one day before I stretched the weekend to a four-day-event. So after I had seen a hammer (warm up) show I came with knotted hair and a hurting neck to the Rock Hard Frstival before it had already begun. Like I said: A new experience!
At the Amphitheater Gelsenkirchen appeared 23 bands (each band 45 minutes minimum execpt for the surprise act Randalica) on one stage (on friday on a different stage) in three days for about 6000 visitors.
Friday
Side Stage
Engel Sometimes even newcomers are somehow familiar. The Swedish fivepiece whose demo became the ‘demo of the month’ in the april-edition of the Rock Hard-magazine calls with Niklas Engelin (Passenger, ex-Gardenian, ex-In Flames) and Marcus Sunesson (ex-The Crown) a well-known guitar-duo its own. Both produced neckbreaking riffs supported by the tight rhythm section and the variable voice of fronter Mangan Klavborn who could have been mixed much louder. Songs like “Walk The Wounded” remembering a little bit to the sound of Soilwork which found many supporters in the early ecening. So the newcomers who were all suited in the same black shirts with a cool band symbol on it became the ideal festival opener.
Custard After the modern Melodic Death Metal-sound of Engel the following band from the close town Herne served old school Melodic Metal. And that just animated a small die-hard fan-group. Only with the cover “In Union We Stand” they reached the whole audience singing the Overkill-hymn. Finally for two songs (“For My King”, “I Know You”) the band got support by their ex-sixstringer and appeared with three guitars.
Mercenary The Danish fivepiece acting with the new bassist and backing-vocalist René brought a modern version of Melodic Metal and they understood to entertain the crowd by their sound. Besides introducing “Soul Decision” from their new album “The Hours That Remain” singer Mikkel Sandagger & Co mainly concentrated on their well-known compositions from their debut “11 Dreams” by “Firesoul”, “World Hate Center”, “Redestrucdead”, “Loneliness” and the title track finishing a set with an astonishing number of stagedivers and crowdsurfers celebrating a cool performance.
Morgana Lefay The great idea to confirm the Bollnäs-crew for this position guaranteed a party for sure. The in my opinion best RHF Friday-headliner up to now was awaited by a lot of spectators filling up the place in front of the Friday-stage. The Power Metal-icon started with “My Funeral Is Calling”. Besides this one they performed by “Hollow”, “I Roam” and “Angels Deceit” three other titles from their current release “Grand Materia”. The band around vocalist Charles Rytkönen filled the rest of their 60 minutes with classics like “Source Of Pain”, “Master Of The Masquerade”, “Maleficium”, “In The Court Of The Crimson King” or the encore “The Boon He Gives”. Celebrated by the whole audience the band showed Power Metal at its best! And honestly: Have you ever seen a weak (Morgana) Lefay-show? I haven’t yet!
Saturday
Main Stage
Mystic Prophecy The Bavarian True Metal-formation was the last band added to the festival-billing. After some sirtaki intro the band around its Greek fronter R.D. Liapakis laid their main accent on their new output “Savage Souls” by the opener “Shadows Beyond Your Soul”, “Master Of Sins”, “Evil Empires”, the title track, “In The Darkness” and “Nightmare Of Demons” and just strew a few older numbers like “Eternal Flame”, “Sign Of The Cross”, the self-titled band-hymn (from “Regressus”) and “Burning Bridges” (from “Never-Ending”). Technically there was no doubt about them, but they didn’t excite me like most of the few people watching the opener of today.
Legion Of The Damned The new Thrash Metal-shooting stars aren’t that new at all! Behind this name there are the members from the well-known Dutch Death Metal-band Occult. They performed all tracks from their new praised debut “Malevolent Rapture” except for “Scourging The Crowned King”. Supported by a bunch of fans the ‘oranje-boys were celebrated for the opener “Werewolf Corpse”, “Taste Of The Whip” as the set-closing self-titled “Legion Of The Damned”. This band earned much support while the gig, so they seemed to be on the right way. Nevertheless I still don’t understand the big excitement around them. In these 45 minutes I got bored.
Primordial After being announced by Rock Hard chief-editor Götz Kühnemund the time had come for Pagan Metal-epics. Ireland’s finest began with “The Golden Spiral” and let follow the title track, “The Coffin Ships” and “The Song Of The Tomb” which was dedicated to the Bathory-mastermind Quorthon three other songs from the new record “The Gathering Wilderness”. Especially much support by the fans Alan A. Nemtheanga and his fellows earned for “Sons Of The Morrigan” and the final “Gods To The Godless”. Although I’m not a big fan of the Irish formation I need to mention they performed a theatralic interesting gig. Finally Nemtheanga concluded with the fitting statement: “Some music still comes from the heart!” Nothing to add!
Caliban The weeks before a lot of Rock Hard Festival-fans weren’t amused about the confirmation of one of the two leading Metalcore-bands coming from Germany. The other one – Heaven Shall Burn – played last year’s Rock Hard Festival, succesfully! And so became the Caliban-performance. They introduced their new album “The Undying Darkness” by “I Rape Myself”, “It’s Our Burden To Bleed” and “Moment Of Clarity” and played a couple of familiar songs like “Revenge”, “I’ve Sold Myself”, “Stigmata”, “My Little Secret” or the hit “The Beloved And The Hatred”. The band also coming from the Ruhr Valley knew how to act on stage as to animate the wild crowd in front of the stage. Mosh- as circle-pits followed there, but also the audience sitting on the amphitheatre-stairs spent much applause. So in contrast to the discussions before the appearance became a success. Just the clean vocals by guitarist Denis Schmidt didn’t hit its aimed tones. Not for the first time.
Brainstorm The best Power Metal-act Germany has to offer began with “World’s Are Coming Through from their latest release “Liquid Monster” and offered a well-balanced combination between those newer (“Invisible Enemy”, “Painside”, “All Those Words”) and older (“Blind Suffering”, “The Leading”, “Highs Without Lows”, “Shadowland”, “Shiva’s Tears”, “Hollow Hideaway”) songs. While the track “Shiva’s Tears” some Rock Hard-member came on stage asking his girl-friend if she wants to marry him. She answered: “Yes!” I can’t understand people searching such forums for that actually romantic intimate moments! By the way the Suebes seemed pretty surprised and after this little ceremony great singer Andy B. Franck showed his entertainer qualities by the question: “Is there still anybody left who wants to marry?” Anyway for another time a phenomenal performance finished by “Doorway To Survive” which chorus was still sung by the fans a couple of minutes after the band had left the stage!
Nevermore The innovative Prog/Power Metal-band from Seattle is always an investment being worth it. Celebrated by a lot of fans banging and singing their lyrics this show became a big triumph. First of all they were forced to renounce sixstringer Steve Smyth for some physical problems (Get well soon!), but they were still blessed with guitar-genius Jeff Loomis. Opening with the new “Final Product” to let follow “Engines Of Hate” and “I Voyager” they spread endless enthusiasm either they played material from the current album “This Godless Endeavor” which was set to the beginning and the end of the show or between it the classics (“The River Dragon Has Come”, “The Seven Tongues Of God”, “The Enemies Of Reality”, “Narcosynthesis”). After the epical nine-minute-lasting title track of the latest masterpiece and the also new “Born” a great show was done. Surprisingly the band didn’t play anything from the “Dreaming Neon Black”-masterpiece or the live-evergreen “The Heart Collector”. For another time the band created a fascinating hour of festival live performance. What a voice! What musicians! What a band!
Sodom The local heros from Gelsenkirchen were anounced with a special show. The Thrash Metal-icon celebrated the 20th anniversary since releasing their first longplayer “Obsessed By Cruelty”. Nevertheless mainman Tom Angelripper started with “”Blood On Your Lips” and “Wanted Dead” from the very new self-titled “Sodom”-record to let follow the jubilated classics “Outbreak Of Evil” and “Napalm In The Morning”. By “Axis Of Evil” and “Buried In The Justice Ground” they performed two other brandnew tracks. But of course the most celebration the threepiece earned by the well-known tracks like “Silence Is Consent”, “The Saw Is The Law”, “Sodomized” and the final part consisting of “Ausgbombt”, “Among The Weirdcong”, “Remember The Fallen” and “Bombenhagel”. Supported by a pyro show the band inspired the curious fans. In contrast to that I was pretty disappointed by a little bit too much motivated band playing their songs much faster than on record and a boring show. I had seen them in a much better form for several times. Followed by loud applause Tom left the stage …
Randalica … but Bobby and Bernemann didn’t. They got reinforced by fronter Sir Pommes, Gunther, Ömmes and Fleisch to play a surprise gig of the band where they had been discovered by Tom Angelripper about ten years ago, the Rock Hard – Irony Metal-project Randalica. For how many years I had been asking for a reunion-gig. And finally my wish should become true! Sir Pommes wearing a cool suit and his comrades performed the three evergreens “Tote Auffe Tanzfläche” (You hopefully all know the legendary video-clip!), “Nach Uns Die Sintflut” and “Potent, Willig & Solo” from the one and only band’s masterpiece “Knast, Tod Oder Rock ‘n’ Roll”. They showed they hadn’t lost anything of their cool live power. And I remember three guys starting a very wild moshpit lasting through the whole appearance!
Bolt Thrower After the sex & crime – protagonists then the time had come for the war machine of all the Metal-bands. Fronter Baz Thompson & Co opened with “4th Crusade” and “Mercenary” and the crowd went totally wild. They were pretty focussed on material from the recent album “Those Once Loyal” (“Entrenched”, the title track, “Anti-Tank (Dead Armour)”, “The Killchain”, “At First Light”, “Salvo”, “When Cannons Fade”). The reactions didn’t show much difference between those new tracks and their older ones (the “World Eater”/“Cenotaph”-medley, “Inside The Wire”, “Powder Burns”, the band-hymn “No Guts, No Glory”, “Warmaster”, the final title “… For Victory”), they were very loud anyway. This was my first Bolt Thrower-concert as I don’t call myself a big fan. And it became a great Death Metal-show. I’m pretty sure noone got really disappointed.
Nevermore/Brainstorm/Sodom/Soilwork As mentioned in the introduction Friday’s headliner Celtic Frost were forced to cancel their first festival show since their reunion because fronter Tom Fischer had become sick in the afternoon and had been brought to hospital. Bassist Eric Ain explained it to the audience which reacted with comprehension. The sadest persons must have been the Celtic Frost-musicians because the Rock Hard Festival-audience would have been a very dignified one to experience the historic live event. In these few hours left it was impossible to witchcraft a new headliner. So four bands being on the festival area and being almost sober played short (each band three songs) sets. The definitely best alternative in that situation!
Nevermore made a good choice and played with “Inside Four Walls” (supported by Soilwork-fronter Björn Strid), “Never Purify” and “Dead Heart In A Dead World” three songs which hadn’t been considered in their regular afternoon-set. Soilwork performed without their keyboarder and fronter Björn Strid seemed to be pretty drunk. But most people dwelled in the same dimension. So most people didn’t care they didn’t act in the best condition and partied to “Stabbing The Drama” (with the guest appearance of Nevermore-singer Warrel Dane), “Rejection Role” and “Stalemate”. Brainstorm showed another powerful performance. Andy B. Franck hadn’t obviously drunk too much and demonstrated his great voice and entertainer qualities while the opener “Inside The Monster” or the following “Forever”. Sodom set the final point and played a mixed set consisting of “Der Wachturm”, the Onkel Tom – side-project track “Es Gibt Kein Bier Auf Hawai” and the Motörhead-cover “Ace Of Spades”. A cool song choice to party!
Sunday
Main Stage
Crucified Barbara The all-girl-band isn’t just attractive, they rock! The first evidence for that by the opener and recent single “Play Me Hard (The Bachelor Guitar)” was only heard by most visitors waiting at the entrance. The earliest RHF-band ever acted at 11 a.m. and meanwhile the security declared the entrance open. A little mishap! While the following “Hide ‘Em All” they played in front of a bunch of fans. Their set contained numbers from their debut “In Distortion We Trust” (the two mentioned titles, “I Wet Myself”, “Going Down”, the title track, “Motherfucker”, “Losing The Game”, “Bad Hangover”) except for the Motörhead-cover “Killed By Death” which marked the end of their set.
Volbeat You want to hear something new in the hard sector? Then could this Danish band be the right choice. Metal-riffs combined with the voice of Michael Poulsen sounding similar to Life Of Agony-singer Keith Caputo and with a touch of Elvis Presley yield a musical result I hadn’t heard till then. To Rock ‘n’ Roll-groovers like “Caroline Leaving”, “Rebel Monster”, “Soulweeper”, the party-hymn “Pool Of Booze Booze Booza” and the Dusty Springfield-cover “I Only Wanna Be With You” (all from the current debut “The Strenght / The Sound / The Songs” you just had one option left in the sunny noon: Go, get your beer and party! They just need to improve their stageacting a little bit. Besides that there is a lot to expect! A band with a promising future!
Gojira The French Metal-scene is a small and in Germany mostly unknown one. Nevertheless it offers real diamonds like Scarve or … Gojira. The fourpiece around Joe Duplantier opened by “Ocean Planet” and song by song they earned more as louder applause. Prog / Death Metal – compositions (a little bit comparable to Meshuggah) like “Backbone”, “From The Sky”, “The Heaviest Matter Of The Universe” (the opener from their current third longplayer “From Mars To Sirius”), “Love” (from the debut) or “The Link” (from the so-titled album) weren’t simple party-invitations, but somehow the complicated songs including intelligent lyrics, the very talented musicians and their energetic live-performance convinced most fans. Probably meanwhile some of them call themselves an owner of the latest Gojira-album. Great band! Great performance! More of that!
Beyond Fear After he had left Judas Priest being replaced by original fronter Rob Halford Tim ‘Ripper’ Owens joined Iced Earth. Obviously Tim needed an own band to express himself musically. So he founded Beyond Fear. Despite his bandmates were unknown the fivepiece acted very tight. The setlist mainly contained tracks from the self-titled band-debut (“And…You Will Die”, “Save Me”, “Coming At You”, “Telling Lies”, “Words Of Wisdom”, the finishing “Scream Machine), added by two tracks of his Judas-Priest-phase (“Burn In Hell”, “Blood Stained”) and the (also often by Judas Priest interpreted) Fleetwood Mac-cover “The Green Manalishi”. Musically this became a good performance and technically there was no doubt left about Tim’s voice. But there were too many screams and much too less harmonies shown. A matter ‘The Ripper’ and his boys should work about!
Evergrey This day was a good day for every Prog-fan. Gojira, had already played, now it was on to Evergrey and there was still Fates Warning to come. Evergrey gave an excellent appearance to their pretty big punch of fans singing the lyrics and banging the shit out of them. The Swedes hit the right balance between their six studio-masterpieces and got celebrated for songs from the new album “Monday Morning Apocalypse” like “Obedience”, “The Curtain Fall” and “Still In The Water” and even more for the classics from their middle ages like “Blinded”, “More Than Ever”, “I’m Sorry”, “Recreation Day”, “A Touch Of Blessing” as for the oldies “Mark Of The Triangle”, “Dark Waters” and an acoustic version of “Words Mean Nothing”. Mastermind Tom S. Englund communicated with the audience much ‘more than ever’. The band rocked the stage musically as by their activity on stage and the crowded place got rocked by numerous of happy fans. What a powerful show!
Finntroll Between all this high quality on the Sunday’s billing there also must have been a lowlight. This job was done by the Folk/Black Metal-band from Finland. Announced by some Rock Hard-writer dressed in a cool bunny-costume the group convinced their die hard-fans with “Jaktens Tid”, “Trollhammaren” and “Nattfödd”. The new frontman Matthias “Vreth” Lillmans did his vocal job as good as his predecessor Wilska, but he had no real stage-presence. Hopefully he was just nervous because the Polka-fans won’t accept a fronter just holding the microphone-stand during the whole gig. But this day it fitted to the performance. The band in general didn’t show that much motivation and somehow I missed the vibe. So they satisfied their die hard-fans, but didn’t win many new fans.
Soilwork After the short bonus gig last night being held by a partly pretty drunk band its members presented themselves in their best condition, especially variable singer Björn ‘Speed’ Strid. Just the sound wasn’t the best one in the gig’s beginning. Supported by Dimension Zero-sixstringer Daniel Antonsson who filled the place left empty after songwriter and gutiarist Peter Wichers had quit the band they played a strong gig consisting of songs from the current “Stabbing The Drama”-album like the title track, “One With The Flies” (including some animation by crazy bassist Ola Flink rowing with his instrument to the song’s rhythm while balancing on some monitor box), “Nerve” or “Stalemate” as of well-known songs mainly from the two longplayers before like “The Bringer”, “Rejection Role”, “Follow The Hollow” or the final “As We Speak”. Thumbs up for Soilwork!
Fates Warning The time had come for one of the very raw concerts the Prog Metal-idols play. I hadn’t seen them since their Dynamo Open Air 1998-appearance. The line-up included a few surprises: Besides mainman Jim Matheos, ‘Mr Voice’ Ray Alder (now with short-cut hair) and bass-veteran Joey Vera the live-line-up was joined by ex-member Frank Arresti on the second guitar and Spock’s Beard-singer/drummer Nick D’ Virgilio on the drums, but they renounced a keyboarder. While the Intro “Disconnected Part I” there was an atmosphere I hadn’t felt for a long time. All fans were waiting for their heroes. From the first tones from the following “One” the crowd got in action. And this party-atmosphere wasn’t about to stop. No wonder while milestones like “A Pleasant Shade Of Gray Part III”, “Still Remains”, the new “Heal Me”, “Life In Still Water”, “Simple Human”, “Monument”, “The Eleventh Hour” and “Point Of View”. Filling an hour this was a nearly perfect setlist. Nearly? Yes, besides the fact nobody really expected songs from the John Arch-era (which isn’t necessary in such a strong set) the band finished with the Scorpons-cover “He’s A Woman, She’s A Man”. A Hardrock-party-classic which could have been replaced by many Fates Warning-classics which party much more. Nevertheless this appearance held by brilliant musicians supported by an ideal sound and a big fan-following (including our whole team, especially Primal Dirk and me) celebrating happily a very unique show which didn’t leave any wishes! Oh yes, one: Don’t let me wait another eight years! Even in this very strong billing definitely the highlight! Overwhelming!
Edguy Whatever followed, the next band was damned to call their live-mission a ‘Mission Impossible’. After the high standards Fates Warning had set Edguy had no other chance to fail. Under this conditions Edguy gave their best, rocked with their simple songs and animated the crowd to take part in. After the intro the combo around front-clown Tobias ‘Run, Forest, Run’ (= always in action) Sammet began with “Lavatory Love Machine”, the classic “Babylon” and “Fucking With Fire” while the crowd didn’t feel problems to arrange itself with their simple music. The five boys from Fulda brought by “Sacrifice”, “Save Me” and “Superheroes” three songs from their new release “Rocket Ride”. By “Fairytale”, “Tears Of A Mandrake”, “Mysteria”, the two oldies “Out Of Control” and the final “Vain Glory Opera” as the final “King Of Fools” they weren’t able to reach the level of the band before, but nevertheless their performance inluding some of the usual Sammet – smalltalks inspired to party again. But there is still the question left why this band played the co-headliner-position including more time than Fates Warning before. It would have been a favour to Edguy letting them play before the US-Proggies.
Dio This concert was supposed to become a very special one to a member of our crew: At midnight Dumbo celebrated his 30th birthday and like the RHF-organizers would have known it they confirmed Dumbo’s voice-hero for the Sunday night – headliner position. Later it also seemed like Dio might have known it, too. Twenty minutes later than planned the Metal / Rock – idol and his tight band opened the show by the Black Sabbath-classic “Children Of the Sea”, “I Speed At Night”, “One Night In The City” and “Stand Up And Shout” happened the unexpected: Short time before midnight they started playing “Holy Diver”. A better birthday present couldn’t have happened to the endless happily Dumbo. After this hit and “Gypsy” Simon Wright played a boring Drum Solo. The rest of the band returned to perform the wonderful ballad “Don’t Talk To Strangers” and the hymn “Rainbow In The Dark” (both as you know also from the classic “Holy Diver”-album) before leaving again for an as unnecessary guitar solo from Craig Goldy. Back again the band took a good choice playing with “I” a Black Sabbath-song from Dio’s “Dehumanizer”-phase. By “All The Fools Sailed Away”, “Man On The Silver Mountain”, the Rainbow-classic “Long Live Rock ‘n’ Roll” and another Black Sabbath-evergreen “Heaven And Hell” Dio and his band finished a best of – set that satisfied all the very happy fans, especially Dumbo!
Conclusion:
The Rock Hard Festival overwhelmed us for another three days like it had done the years before! The organizers were able to hold all the high standards (e.g. a very good toilet / restroom-situation for free, an uncomplicated security, Rock Hard – members always being close to the fans for answering their questions, etc.). The prices were the same as last year (e.g. 2,30 Euro for a 0,33l beer or softdrink). And after four years most bands of the metal-scene should know about the unique area and atmosphere of the Amphitheater in Gelsenkirchen to have the unconditional will to play there. It might be a very special experience to the musicians playing there and it is definitely to our team. Next year we’ll rock on at Rock Hard Festival!
Special Thanks go out to Manni Glamowski, Jenny Rönnebeck, Götz Kühnemund, Martina Sinovzik and the RHF-team!!!!!
Another Special Thanks go out to all those dudes signing the birthday card for Dumbo (He was more than pleased about it!): Musicians from Nevermore, Soilwork, Sodom, Dew-Scented, members of Rock Hard (some of them are mentioned in the other Special Thanks-list above), Heavy, Metal Blade, Nuclear Blast Century Media, Inside Out, SPV and the big couple of friends!!!!!
On the Rock Hard Festival rocked, partied and drank Tobi Wan Kenobi, Lotte, Dumbo, VeVa and Primal Dirk!!!!!